In today’s ultra-competitive world of professional motorsports, the idea of beginning a career in racing at the age of 27 is utterly unthinkable. Likewise, the idea that one man can win championships at the highest level on both two wheels and four seems beyond reason, yet Tazio Nuvolari accomplished both these feats and far more. Dubbed “the greatest driver of the past, the present and the future” by Ferdinand Porsche, Nuvolari’s three-decade career is still spoken of with reverence, even six decades after his death.

Born in Castel d’Ario, Italy, in November 1892, Nuvolari grew up in a house with three brothers. From an early age, Nuvolari exhibited far more interest in sports than in his studies, perhaps because his father and his uncle were accomplished bicycle racers. At age 12, his uncle Giuseppe taught young Tazio to ride a motorcycle, and Nuvolari soon proved to be a skilled and fearless rider. He may have begun racing motorcycles at a much earlier age, as he received his first racing license in 1915, but World War I intervened, and Nuvolari found himself appointed as a driver for the Italian army.

On his Bianchi 350 at the Lario Circuit, 1924.

In this role, Nuvolari was expected to drive everything from staff cars through ambulances, and the haste at which he operated motor vehicles frequently unnerved passengers. Once, while driving an ambulance filled with injured soldiers, Nuvolari’s passion exceeded his talent, and the net result was an off-course excursion that left the ambulance stranded in a ditch. Once the injured were evacuated, Nuvolari was dressed-down by an officer, who told him to “forget driving – you are not cut out for the job.”

Fortunately, Nuvolari ignored this advice, though it’s unclear how he spent the remainder of his time in the Italian army. In 1920, Nuvolari entered his first motorcycle race under his middle name, perhaps to keep the fact that he was engaging in a dangerous sport from his wife, who had just given birth to the couple’s first son. His debut race ended in a DNF, but by 1923, Nuvolari was racing professionally, often alternating between motorcycles and cars. His first automotive victory came in 1921, driving an Ansaldo Tipo 4 in an endurance race (the Coppa Veronese di Regolarita), but his real passion remained motorcycles.

Testing the Alfa Romeo P2 at Monza, 1925.

By 1925, Nuvolari was the 350-cc European Motorcycling Champion, but the year also saw him test an Alfa Romeo P2 Grand Prix car at Monza. Over the course of several laps, Nuvolari’s time decreased with each completed circuit, until he was within a few seconds of the legendary Antonio Ascari; looking to best Ascari’s time, Novolari pressed the Alfa Romeo beyond its limits, seizing the gearbox and causing the car to spin at speed. Thrown from the car, Nuvolari sustained numerous fractures and lacerations, just one week before the National Grand Prix motorcycle race at Monza. Doctors advised that he’d be bed-ridden for a month, but Nuvolari wouldn’t hear of it; on the morning of the race, his personal physician bandaged him in a crouched riding position, and, perhaps, said a prayer for his stubborn patient. Unable to support the bike with his own bandaged legs, Nuvolari relied on his mechanic to keep him upright on the grid (and to catch him during each pit stop and at the race’s conclusion). Fighting through the pain, Nuvolari went on to take the win in the closing laps, before passing out at the race’s conclusion. No one should have been able to recover so quickly from injuries that severe, and no one in his condition should have won a top-level motorcycle race; with his victory at Monza, the legend of Tazio Nuvolari was born.

By 1927, Nuvolari realized that the best way to advance his automotive driving career was to start his own team, so Scuderia Nuvolari was born with the purchase of four Bugatti Type 35 racers. Partnering with Nuvolari would be his friend (and later arch-rival) Achille Varzi. Nuvolari would post significant wins that year, including the Gran Prix of Tripoli (Nuvolari’s first international win on four wheels), at Verona, and at Circuito di Alessandria.

Winning the Mille Miglia for Alfa Romeo, 1930.

The 1929 season convinced Nuvolari that one could not be an effective team owner and driver, particularly if running a string of auto dealerships also entered into the mix. Worse, his relationship with Achille Varzi seemed irreparably strained, and the financial burden of campaigning a team at the highest level of motorsports only added to Nuvolari’s misery. Wins were coming with less regularity, but the year also brought good news: Despite his mishap behind the wheel of an Alfa Romeo in 1925, the team made an offer to sign Nuvolari as its star driver. With a controversial pass of his rival (and now teammate) Varzi, Nuvolari delivered victory in his official debut at the 1930 Mille Miglia, setting a record pace in the process.

Nuvolari and team manager Enzo Ferrari had a difficult relationship, and by the end of the 1933 season he’d made the decision to drive for Maserati in the coming year. This, too, failed to be a suitable home for Nuvolari, who entered into discussion with the Auto Union team during the 1934 season. While Nuvolari had his supporters on the German squad, his rival Varzi was the star driver of the team, and he blatantly refused to pair with Nuvolari. For 1935, he returned to the Scuderia Ferrari team, where he delivered an “impossible” victory at the Nürburgring, beating the much faster Silver Arrows of the Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union teams in an obsolete Alfa Romeo P3.

Driving the Auto Union Silver Arrow, 1938.

Following the tragic 1938 death of Bernd Rosemeyer in a land speed record attempt, the Auto Union team hired Nuvolari to drive its difficult-to-master mid-engine racers, and the Italian driver brought home a win at theBritish Great Britain’s Donington Grand Prix. In 1939, World War II cut short the racing season, but Nuvolari managed to deliver a victory for the Auto Union team at the final race, the Belgrade Grand Prix. Though Nuvolari would resume racing in 1946, he was then 53 years old, and reportedly suffering the effects of acute asthma. Wins came, but with far more effort and far less regularity, and in 1950, Nuvolari drove his last race (the Palermo-Montepellegrino Hillclimb) behind the wheel of a Cisitalia-Abarth 204, delivering a class win.

Though Nuvolari had hoped to die behind the wheel, participating in the sport he’d devoted his life to, it was a series of strokes that ended his life in 1953. His funeral was attended by an estimated 55,000 people, and the driver known as “The Flying Mantuan” was laid to rest by some of the biggest names in motorsports. Though other drivers have since exceeded Nuvolari’s wins and championships, few have driven with his sheer determination and will to win, forever preserving Nuvolari as one of motorsport’s all-time greats.

Perhaps Rosemeyer would have preferred the latter, Howard. Or at least a chance to retire. I think that Novulari was too good a driver to die on the track; if he could handle that Auto Union Silberpfeile, he could handle anything!

There is no such animal as a driver too good to die. I wish that I could have seen Nuvolari drive, but I did see Clark, who was head and shoulders above his contemporaries, win races with a broken F1 car. Gilles Villeneuve hired me to photograph him at Trois-Rivieres, so I saw him drive, close-up, as I did Clark, and, Gilles was phenomenal. He won on a combination of extreme aggression (but ALWAYS playing fair) and car control beyond belief. Gilles, like Tazio and Jimmy was a real racer. One thing, that is not often written about, is how intelligent, how brilliant these top most racers are. The will to win (aggression) and control skills will not win without a mind to match.

Many of the young guys will mention names of their time and not even know about a Briggs Cunningham or Luigi Chinetti let alone pioneer as Nuvolari was. I was watching the other day some footage of two astronauts riding a lunar rover on the moon and one of the men mentined Barney Oldfield twice. Had to explain that man to the younger members of my family.

Thanks for the piece. Kurt you ever do a piece on Fangio and his kidnapping that took place before the race in Cuba?

In an old Twilight Zone Jonathan Winters portrayed Death in one episode, where he started naming off the great champions he had taken, Tazio Nuvolari was one of them.

I am so glad to have lived in an era where champions donned a polo shirt, a porridge pot helmet, and went out in fast, evil handling machines to gave it their all.

In the early 70′s I worked at a garage in Silverlake California that had the remains of Doc. McHenry’s Cad Allard, and wondered how anybody could drive something with 1935 Ford front axles cut in half, and suspended with coil springs for a front suspension, powered by a blown 1949 Cadillac engine. Any driver of todays caliber wouldn’t get within 20 feet of that monster.

Let’s hope they have fast motorcycles and V16 Auto Unions in paradise. One can only hope…

I don’t know what kind of racing they do in paradise, but it might be fun to imagine what they race down in that other place – identically prepared Ford Pinto’s, perhaps? (Without the fuel tank mod, of course!)

Fine writing job, Kurt. You bring this ancient motoring history to life vividly.

Success of that caliber in both two- and four-wheel racing was most remarkable – only John Surtees could be said to have come close to Nuvolari’s achievement.

His survival into old age in an era of brutal road circuits, unpredictable machinery and scant safety features is also amazing, particularly when you consider the death toll of top riders and drivers those days (actually, up until the 1970s / 1980s, when those most at risk organized and demanded upgrades). There is that grim video on YouTube where Jackie Stewart counts off all his racing contemporaries who died at speed.